1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the use of optoelectronic components in fiber optic digital communication networks and, more particularly, to transponder assemblies and the electrical and circuit components within them.
2. Discussion of the Background
The majority of computer and communication networks in use today rely on copper wiring to transmit data between network nodes. However, electrical signals carried by copper wiring have a limited capacity for carrying digital data.
Many computer and communication networks, including large parts of the Internet, are now being built using fiber optic cabling that can be used to transmit much greater amounts of data. With fiber optic elements data is transmitted using optical signals (sometimes referred to as photonic signals) having greater data carrying capacity.
However, since computers use electrical signals as opposed to optical signals, the light signals used to transmit data over fiber optic links must be translated to electrical signals and vice-versa during the optical communication process. Building such fiber optic networks therefore requires optoelectronic modules which electrically and optically interface optical transmission mediums such as fiber optic cables with electronic computing and communications devices. Further, in order to provide the required bandwidth for very high-speed communications, fiber optic ribbon cables having multiple fiber optic elements and so-called “parallel optics” modules adapted for transmitting or receiving multiple signals over such may also be used.
The optoelectronic modules associated with fiber optic networks should therefore be adapted for accommodating fiber optic ribbon cables having multiple fibers. Further, it is desirable for separate parallel optic transmitter and receiver modules to be incorporated in transponder assemblies which can separately transmit and receive optical data over separate cables using the transmitter and receiver modules. However, for most applications these transponder assemblies must be compact and should utilize only the smallest possible footprint on the circuit boards within the electronic computing or communications devices with which the fiber optic network is interfacing. Accordingly, the components and circuitry within the transponder assembly must be designed to have the smallest possible dimensions.